is not, there will not be. >> does the prime minister think it fair that a war widow has to pay income tax on her war widow's pension? >> my honorable friend raises a very good point. we need to look at all those sorts of issues under the work that we are doing on the military covenant-there are very complicated issues of pensions and interaction with taxes. i do not want to give a flip answer from the dispatch box; we have a proper process of looking at the military covenant, which is the right way to do things. >> climate finance will be critical at the ongoing climate summit at cancun. although i welcome the fact that the government have pledged £2.9 billion to the global climate fund, will the prime minister confirm that any future money pledge will be additional to existing aid budgets, and can he say what further innovative funding mechanisms he plans to employ to deliver the uk's share of the annual $100 billion pledged at copenhagen?

>> the honorable lady is absolutely right to raise that. although cancun will not achieve the binding global agreement that we want, it can make important steps towards that, so we can stay on track. on climate finance, first, we will stick to what was set out previously on the limit in the aid budget for money used for climate change purposes, although there are very real connections between climate change and poverty; and secondly, there is a commitment, which we will keep to, of £2.9 billion for climate change finance. britain is a leader on that, but inshe saiaimust look at more money from other parts of the world, including-frankly- from some fast-growing areas which, when kyoto was first thought of, were very underdeveloped and are now fast- developing countries. we need to help them, but the finance should not flow only from us. >> will the prime minister have urgent talks with the leader of the house and the business

secretary on introducing legislation for a national regulator or ombudsman for supermarkets before more suppliers are decimated by their conduct? >> we have new arrangements in terms of ensuring that supermarkets treat farmers fairly. all of us as constituency mps have heard stories about supermarkets behaving very aggressively towards farmers, and it is right that there is a proper way of trying to police that independently, so that our farmers get a fair deal for the food that they produce. >> each week, the house of commons is in session, we will air prime minister's questions wednesday at 7:00 a.m. eastern and again sunday night at 9:00 p.m. eastern. at c-span.org you can find links to the house of commons and prime ministers website.

>> next, a discussion on the republican agenda in the next session of congress. after that, q&a with john burns. then, another chance to see prime minister david cameron in the british house of commons. >> on saturday, the senate voted not to advance to the amendments to extend the bush era tax cuts. negotiations on tax cuts continue with no official for action scheduled this week. the senate gavels in tomorrow at 2:00 p.m. eastern with no votes expected. on tuesday, they will take up impeachment proceedings against u.s. district judge. also, boats are planned on the dream act to give illegal immigrants a path to citizenship. live senate coverage on c-span2.

>> find great holiday gifts for the c-span fan in your life and our c-span store. from books to dvd is, mugs and umbrellas and more. it is all online at c-span.org /shop. now, bill kristol, and senate republican conference chairman lamar alexander discuss the republican agenda in the upcoming 112th congress. this event is hosted by the hudson institute. it is about one hour 25 minutes. >> i would like to welcome our audience at home watching on c- span and our viewers at hudson.org. we are pleased to have hudson

alexander here today. lamar alexander and needs no introduction. lamar alexander needs no introduction. he is a senior senator from the set of tennessee. he served as governor of tennessee, as president of the university of tennessee, as u.s. secretary of education, as a businessman, and also as a hudson institute fellow. for a few hundred votes in the new hampshire primary, he would've been the republican nominee in 1986.

-- 1996. the senator has treated his signature red flannel shirt for the more muted suit of it u.s. senate. he is a leader who takes ideas seriously. in recent years, we have worked with him on numerous issues, including the assimilation of immigrants. he and his colleagues will tell you the same. he is one of the most well- liked members on both sides of the senate. that is in part because he has never forgotten his small-town tennessee roots. back in 1994, in the days of strong republican resurgence in congress, former gov. alexander, along with then-hudson senior fellow, promised a new hudson project funded largely by our friends, but not exclusively by our friends, at the liam hadley policy group. the book was a critically acclaimed volume, a hudson institute press classic. as worthy as the ideas were the time for a variety of complicated reasons, i did not fully take root. 15 years later, as the 112 congress prepares to take

office, our panel will look at the themes of the book to examine what vision that derailed and why it is even more urgent today. i have the distinct honor of introducing senator alexander. as worthy as the ideas were at the time for a variety of complicated reasons, they did not fully take root. 15 years later, as the 112th congress prepares to take office, they will look at the teams of the book to examine what vision was derailed.

i have the great honor of introducing center alexander. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for that introduction. he reminded me of my small town rich. i was driving along lamar alexander parkway. i stopped at the 7-eleven to get a little something and put it on the counter. i had no cash. i reached in my pocket, pulled out my credit card, and handed it to the little girl behind the counter. she said, "may i ask a question?" i said, "yes." she said, "was you named after this road?" [laughter] thank you for doing this. this is a real treat. chuck and i delighted, first, that you sponsor the project to begin with 15 years ago. we had a good forum about it and a good discussion. we had tremendously talented authors for this volume.

and now the palace that are here today, i am genuinely looking for testing to listen to the panelists who are among the most distinguished figures in our country. i thank all of you for coming. the eminent british political philosopher maurice cranston said that the best metaphor for political performance was a theatrical performance because the politician is acting a drama written by the audience themselves.

whether it is the british philosopher or me comparing music with politics, we all listen for what resonates. for phrases that resonated in the 2010 election, we might listen to the senators who were elected and hear what they said. in a year -- and this is what we will find out -- in a year, when television screens displaying your, these politicians often talked about hope. there were rand paul evangelizing market prosperity, instead of dwelling on government austerity. they talked about experience to describe ways to make it easier and cheaper to create private- sector jobs. marco rubio, affirming with his life story, america's exceptionalism, rather than lamenting america's decline.

there was too much spending, too many taxes, too much debt, and to many -- and too many washington takeovers. most to worry elected are american dreamers, who believe that anything is still is possible for anyone who will work for it. europeans and others around the world find this to be an irrational view. yet most of american politics, and i think sam huntington is the one who wrote this, is about setting high goals and dealing with the disappointment of not meeting those goals and then trying again. this is not an unforced

americanism where the government in washington tells you what to believe. it is a spontaneous patriotism of the kind that you get from reading lincoln's second inaugural address or the pledge of allegiance which george washington's men swore at valley forge or attending citizenship swearing at a federal courthouse. it is the rest of the book that we propose to discuss today. the remaining chapters argue that to realize the promise of american life, the central government in washington must play a much larger role. his book launched the progressive movement, featuring, first, president wilson and now president obama.

his is a strategy of made-in- washington policies, grand schemes to sell big national problems, based upon the assumption that these are things that individual americans simply cannot do for ourselves. in 1995, as he said, at the hudson institute's request, we edited a book which we call "the new promise of american life." we were fellows at hudson. i was touring the country hoping to persuade americans that i was the logical choice for president of the united states. the public did not agree with my logic, prompting my preacher brother-in-law to suggest that i should think of that political loss as a reverse calling. [laughter] our book was an attempt to

provide intellectual content for the anti-washington fervor of the moment. it was a fervor that surges through american history. we chose the title of " the new promise of american life" because we believe that progressivism had been carried too far and what our country now needed was a reverse mirror image of the vision or less from washington and more of ourselves. our idea of america was one created by state's operating community-by community, depending on civic virtue, valuing individual liberty, in committees to large and too diverse to be managed by a central government in washington, d.c. my best political one minor at the time was "cut their pay and send them home." it referred to congress, which made few friends in the world's greatest deliberative body in which no sir. 15 years ago, i was impressed with the essays from bill kristol and howard baker and francis fukuyama and others. their advice resonates as well today as it did then.

reading their advice also reminds me of how little of that device anyone took. republicans who were elected in 1994 on the cry of "no more unfunded federal mandates soon" replaced liberal government rules. the size of the federal budget has grown 140% and the federal debt is up from $5 trillion to the $14 trillion. in the last two years, the progressive revolution symphony

has been playing in washington again. with government bailouts and, as one blogger has pointed out, the appointment of more new czars and czarinas then even the romanov's could have imagined. this form is the result of the suggestion. after what i have to say, we will hear from a distinguished panel that includes three contributors from the 1995 volume. our hope is the same today as it was 15 years ago, to provide an intellectual context for the latest anti-washington surge, with the additional hope that officials will listen to it and act on our advice. let me begin the discussion with a single suggestion that i have made before. the new congress should proceed step-by-step in the right direction to solve problems in a way that re-earsn the trust of the -- re-earns the trust of the american people.

to make this point, i thought of hanging up in the republican cloakroom photographs of nancy pelosi and harry reid. it is not just heading in the wrong direction, but trying to get there all at once. this is a government trying to take big bites from several apples and trying to solve them at the same time. during the recent health care debate, i heard a number of times from democrats from the other side of the aisle this question. "what are republicans for?" my answer was that, if democrats were waiting for the

republican leader, senator mcconnell, to roll into the senate a wheelbarrow filled with a 2700-page republican health care bill, they would be waiting for a long time. congressional action on comprehensive climate change, comprehensive immigration, and comprehensive health care have been well intended. but the first two fell of their own weight. and the health care law has been subject to multiple efforts to repeal it since it passed the senate a year ago on christmas eve in a driving snowstorm. it has united almost all republicans and the majority of americans against these bills. it is not only in ideology, but comprehensive. two recent articles help to explain the trouble with the democratic conference of

approach. the first appeared in national affairs and written by one of our panelists today. he explained that the "sheer ambition of president obama as a policy president," he wrote that the president advisers have been educated at elite universities and process initiatives all at once and create compressive policies for social systems in a society -- this is the latest outburst of crowlyism or progressivism. systemic problems of health care, energy, education, environment simply cannot be solved in pieces.

analyzing the article, historical, that approach has not worked. the progressives failed to gain more than a brief some woods. the reason for these failures is that "this highly rational comprehensive approach fits uncomfortably with the constitution which proportions powers among so many different players." "democracy is messier than progressives and their heirs wish to recognize. the latest example of mr.

wilson's observation can be seen by anyone watching the new health care a lot increase premiums, add to the federal debt, caused millions of individual policyholders to lose their policies, cause businesses to postpone any new jobs, and in fixed huge unfunded medicaid mandates on states, all consequences of the law never intended. i have to say they were predicted by republicans. neoconservatism was not unorganized ideology or even a necessarily conservative one, but a way of thinking of politics rather than a set of politics or rules. it would have been better if we had been called policy skeptics. this skepticism toward grant

legislative policy schemes help to explain how during the 2010 election the law of unintended consequences may being a member of the "party of no" and more in electable choice than being a member of the party of "yes we can." respect for the law of unintended consequences is "not an argument for doing nothing,

but is one in my view for doing things experimentally." try the idea out in one place and see what happens before you inflicted on the whole country. that is why the republican party aspires to be a governing party, rather than merely an ideological debating society. the question must still be "what are republicans for?" and the question has to be answered. you will find we have been trying. you will find republican senators trying to edge of the question, following mr. wilson's advice -- trying to answer the question, following mr. wilson's advice. setting a clear goal, reducing america's health care costs so that more of us can afford to buy insurance. but then we propose the first six steps towards that goal. one, allow small businesses to pool their resources to buy health care plans. two, reducing junk lawsuits

against doctors. 3, allowing policies against state lines. 5, promoting wellness for prevention. 6, avoiding fraud and abuse. create the environment for 100 new nuclear plants, in metrified our cars, explore our shore for natural gas and oil, double energy research and develop four new forms of clean energy. this step-by-step republican clean energy plan was a an

alternative to the tax that would have imposed an economy- wide cap and trade scheme collecting hundreds of billions of dollars each year for slush funds with which congress could play. here is still another example, a bipartisan one. and 2005, they asked the national academy to identify the first 10 steps congress should take to preserve america's competitive the advantage so we could keep growing jobs. the academy recommended 20 steps. congress enacted two-thirds of it. we call it the america competes act of 2007. it was important legislation. some steps are larger and some are smaller, such as banking laws, keeping debt and taxes low, recruiting japanese

industry in the auto industry, but also building highways so suppliers can get their parts to the auto plants in time. and then a better schools program, one of which is to pay our teachers more for teaching well. we became the fastest-growing state in family incomes. as a result of the 2010 elections, we clearly have

enough clout to stop risky comprehensive schemes featuring more taxes, more debt, more washington takeovers, and more hidden and unexpected surprises. we have enough clout to suggest alternative approaches for the most urgent problems of the day. in fact, we have an obligation to do so if we want to be able to persuade independent voters, as well as republicans, that we ought to be the governing party in america after 2012. there's no mystery what our focus should be, jobs, debt, payroll. it should be easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs. make it easier and cheaper to create private-sector jobs. and you can make your list. i can make mine. a list comes to my mind. to not raise taxes on anybody in the middle of an economic

downturn. we have a discussion on that in congress this weekend. repeal one by one the mandates on job creators and the health care law. reduce the corporate tax rate. reduce or eliminate the capital gains tax. defend state's ability to create a work force. enact korea, columbia trade law. such a comprehensive undoing carries the risk of scaring independence. as a practical matter, there is no better way to do that without replacing a repealing yet with a step-by-step health care costs.

most do not take effect until 2014. the same step-by-step approach can be applied to the second goal, making annual spending come to as close to revenues as possible. trying to eliminate the annual deficit in one year will turn the nation upside down. for a nation that is borrowing 42 cents of every dollar, to waste one day to address its debt is suicidal. action should be taken immediately while other steps are being fashioned. one would be no new entitlements on spending programs. not dig the hole any deeper. president obama's budget would

have half $1 trillion in mandatory spending. no more unfunded federal mandates on local governments. >> caps on discretionary spending. these dollars add up. ted the money and use it to make medicare solvent. adopted 2-year budget. this would allow congress to spend every other year on repealing laws that are out of date and wasteful. give the rest -- >> give the rest of the government also general motors stock to every american who paid federal income taxes last april. that is the best way to get the government out of the automobile business. earmarks have become a symbol of waistcoat washington

spending. there are too many of them. to many of them are for less than efficient purposes. the process has to be cleaned up. this is less about the moral government banned reducing spending. and earmarked band turns the check book over to the president at a time where most americans voted or a check on the presidency. american voters wanted more freedom for themselves. that advice was not heeded. we find ourselves the beneficiaries of another outburst. we have the opportunity to lay the groundwork to be a governing party in the next two years. i hope republicans heed the

advice of wilson and kristol. rather than attempt comprehensive governing schemes, we keep an eye on the things that matter most, reduced spending closer to revenues, and deal in a strategic way with terrorism. then we proceed step-by-step toward those goals in a way that re-earns the trust of the american people. there was a politician that said this is the one country in the world where most people believe that anything is possible and anyone can succeed if he or she works hard. this is a country still, where your grandfather can tell you as mine did, to aim for the top because there is more room there. hopefully republicans who were

elected in 2010 will follow their instincts not just to oppose progressivism, but to offer a new promise of american life as we tried to do 15 years ago. hopefully, they will continue to remind americans that this debate is not a dry, dusty analysis, but a contest between competing governing realities where most people still believe anything is possible. our argument is that our country's exceptionalism is best realize when we expect less from washington and more from ourselves. thank you. [applause] >> thank you for those

characteristically bold remarks. i would like to open it up for questions. please identify yourself and speak into the microphone. >> the question i would have for you, senator, is certainly the last time they started strong and ended weak, they were serious about eliminating government functions. i do not hear in your blueprint a thing about eliminating overgrown government that goes beyond the constitution. the other question i have for you is the achilles heel of the modern conservative movement. in the so-called war on terror

and all its attendant, including two wars in the middle east, it seems that conservatives have followed the companies approach that you have said the of the described. what does conservatism need to do to approach the war on terror in a non-comprehensive way? >> that is a terrific question. i will give you a brief answer and leave most of it to the panel. i am anxious to hear what they have to say. i suggest a focus on no new entitlements. we are at a crisis and at a place where we have to head in

the other direction. i am deadly serious about that. i will take your question and ask if the panel can deal with that question as a part of its discussion. >> thank you. >> let me ask the panel to come up. as they are coming up, i have the honor of introducing our distinguished moderator our kate o'beirne. she is a contributor to bloomberg television and a journalist who spent many years as a commentator on cnn and a frequent panelist on "meet the press." >> thank you. encouraging to hear such a terrific speech from a senator.

i am looking forward to the 112th congress. we could not have a more insightful group of speakers. as insightful, but not more insightful. they will share their thoughts about today's topics, less of washington and more of ourselves. i will introduce our speakers in the order in which i will call on them to share their initial thoughts. hopefully that will start a discussion among the panel. we will be delighted to invite questions to the audience. chris is a senior fellow at the american enterprise institute. scholars talk about how indispensable his insight and guidance was.

previously, he was administrator for information in the office of management and budget and the executive on governmental task forces. he practiced in private practice. he worked on urban and environmental policy. he holds a degree from harvard university and the chicago law school. our second speaker is going to be bill chambra. prior to joining the hudson institute, he directed programs for the bradley foundation in milwaukee. he was director of the office of personnel management and also the director of health and human services. he served as a member of the

national historic publications and records commission, to which he was appointed by president reagan. he served on the board of directors for corporations and national community service. bill kristol is editor of "the weekly standard." he frequently appears on the fox news sunday and the fox news channel. he led the project for republican's future. before coming to washington in 1985, he taught at the university of pennsylvania. finally, senator alexander's colorado-editor. he is director of the fordam

institute's think tank. he is the senior editor of the outstanding journal on education reform. he is a fellow at the hudson institute. for 40 years, he has been at the forefront of the debate on school reform. he is the author of innumerable articles. he has a master's degree in social studies and a doctorate in education from harvard university. with that, i will turn the program over to chris or his initial remarks. >> thank you very much. realizing the new promise of

american life as described in senator alexander's book of 1995 involves many political -- i am sorry. am i not on -- it involves challenges as emphasized in bill kristol's contribution to that volume. it has to do with shaping the decisions of those in authority in a public interest direction. the reason for elections are reasons to be pleased with our political institutions as a whole. a dramatic shift in popular opinion changed our major legislative institutions at the national level and many

political institutions at the state level in just a few years. it is impossible in any other advanced democracy for a shift in public opinion to translate into a change in governments so rapidly. the fact that we have institutions that are so responsive encourages political participation. i want to focus, however, on an institutional problem that i think is particularly severe and is particularly related to the progressive movement, which inspired that book and this panel, that is the problem of government regulation. let me offer this current example. federal spending and debt have been growing at terrifying rate. taxation is expected to increase substantially in just a few weeks. following the elections, which were animated by these prospects, that is likely to change.

under the constitution, they have the power. in collaboration with the obama administration, the new congress is likely to moderate the scheduled tax increases. federal rule-making and legislation has also been growing at an unprecedented rate in recent years. as a result of the environmental protection agency's policy to advise and extend most of its important environmental and pollution control rules as a result of the deployment of energy conservation regulations enacted in statues in the bush administration, as a result of the fcc's attempt to regulate the internet and dozens of initiatives. that growth is going to increase significantly in the

next couple of years as a result of the regulatory juggernaut created by the obama health care legislation and the dodd- frank act, which created dozens of new procedures. hear, the laws are written, the costs imposed, the benefits dispersed not by congress nine regulatory agencies in the executive branch acting on the allocation of power from past congresses, congress is from 2009, 1970, the new deal, or even earlier. we have been putting in place new innovations for increasing the autonomy of regulatory agencies from the congress. in the past few years, in the

bush administration, under the sarbanes oxley act, we created a new agency in washington with independent taxing power. the independent accounting oversight board created -- it sets its own budget and send a tax bill to every public corporation. if you don't pay it, you go to leavenworth. under dodd-frank, the new consumer protection agency does not have to go to congress for money. it takes its money from the federal reserve. the federal reserve is a profitable bank. it gets an automatic share of that. the regulatory state has been the most durable legacy of the progressive era itself, growing

for one century right down to the present. the original rationale delegated lawmaking power from congress was expertise. the idea was that the neutral application of rational analysis and control beyond the politics could improve society and economic performance. long after that original idea lost its luster, an agency independent of the congress developed political logic of its own. our elected representatives can take credit for lofty goals, clean air, safe products, or the solution of exited crises, such as the crisis of 2008, but leave the contingence decisions to regulators.

that was a response to be depression and the growth of environmentalism and consumerism in the 1970's. it was a response to a variety of crises that marked the george w. bush administration, such as the accounting scandals that gave us sarbanes oxley, the price increases that gave us this new arsenal of conservation regulations and more recently in the dodd-frank and the obamacare act. we find a heavy reliance on regulatory authority. if you talk to people about what those acts say, they say will just have to wait and see. there are two other features that make regulations so persistent.

one is that regulation proceeds minutely in tiny steps taken through regulatory procedures, which amounts to assembling a coalition of interest groups, and equilibrium in favor of each small step so that each small step is unwound. the current estimate is that regulatory costs are $1.75 chilean per year. that is probably right. it is hard to estimate. the important thing is that no congressman or senator ever voted to appropriate those funds. you get things like tsa or the epa, which are always taking further and further steps.

if those were quantified and put on but is, it would be a different debate. the result is that the growth of regulation is continuous and bipartisan since the new deal. republican rhetoric is more attuned to free markets and more skeptical of regulation. democratic party rhetoric is more pro-regulation and pro- control. you see little changed from administration to the administration. the regulatory champs since 1960, the administrations where we have seen the biggest leaks, have not changed.

with jimmy carter, it was with the a of a senator. it continued into the first term of senator reagan. even the principal, a conservative reformers stay away from regulation. the 1994 contract with america, the 2010 pledge to america, the road map to american prosperity, they are large issues, economic issues. there are reasons for this. i have described some of them. i will end with a point of emphasis. there are several epa regulations that are as complex and resistant to understanding

in summary as a proposal for a new arms control agreement with the soviet union. which of the two should a conscientious legislature focus on? there are vast benefits that will result, even more vast than the costs. "the wall street journal" had a good opinion article about the federal communications commission. they write that column about once every five years by one person or another. sometimes it is a liberal. sometimes it is a conservative. they want people to understand the broadcast communications industry. the fcc is decades beyond any public justification. no politician would go near that proposal with a 10 foot

pole. i would not say that the regulatory area is as fast as the irs. it is easier to summarize and characterize what the purposes of reform. there are several proposals that are springing up to change the institution of regulation. one proposal from senator mark warner up virginia is to take account of the problem of off- budget costs. he would like to put regulations on a pay-as-you-go basis. if there is a rule that costs $50 billion per year, you would have to go back and clean up all the regulations that have been imposed in the past to the tune of $50 billion in savings

to add more regulations. and even more audacious proposal is that from senator jim demint and jeff davis of kentucky. it is the act that says no major regulation, regulation costing more than $100 billion or more, may take effect until it has been approved by a joint resolution of congress with the president's signature. it has the advantage of going back to the heart of the matter. what congressman or senator will say we should not stand up and be counted on something that can cost $100 billion per year.

i like these institutional reform ideas. i like the step-by-step approach in the size by senator alexander in his pre present years. ronald reagan was a crusading newspaper columnist. he was involved in issues of taxation. every couple of columns he got down in the weeds with some preposterous regulatory proposal and made great fun of it. he was knowledgeable about these matters. i would like to see the new congress do a couple of step- by-step things. my proposal, for starters, is to pass a simple law repealing the law passed in the bush administration to ban the incandescent light bulb. individual cases like this can have a great affect on policy.

there are a huge number of them to be addressed. thank you. >> bill? >> thank you, senator, for calling us together. the special honor of being mentioned in the stay speech with william -- who taught me everything i learned about public policy. it was a privilege to be working beside dan schmidt and to be working for the project's financial backer. it is a particular honor to have worked for the late michael joyce. our enthusiasm for the project came not from an ideological doctrine, but from our work on

the ground in low income neighborhoods in milwaukee. there were social service professionals who claims to know better than everyday citizens how their affairs should be managed. the results there and elsewhere across america have been disastrous. decaying families, dysfunctional schools, rising crime rates. for the first time, low income parents were able to make one of the most critical lot choices on their own, selecting the school their children would attend with public support. the notion of parents was anathema to the teachers' unions. it proved equally unsettling to

anyone possessing a professional social-service credenza. shortly that it is to get up expertise merited acquiescence from ordinary americans who had mismanaged their own affairs without professional supervision. as that battle raged in milwaukee, lamar alexander, who managed to overcome his own credentials to side with the parent in the school choice battle, began to explore the underpinnings of "government's immoral empire." there was an argument for the professionalization.

in the complex and professional circumstances of the 20th century, the promise of american life could no longer be fulfilled by the idiosyncratic work of democratic individualism. it demanded that our national life be turned over to experts. this enabled us to manage the growing webs of interdependent. social engineers had devoted heart and soul to a grand vision of community. they were still clinging to antiquated parochial moral and religious myths.

by the 1980's, we had seen the result of this vision. american citizens were being turned into passive, helpless clients increasingly dependent on social services lavishly funded and poorly designed and effectively delivered. this helped fuel the congressional elections of 1994. how much more is it true of the congressional elections of 2010? we see the fiercely proud "don't tread on me" populist movement. the tone deaf areas of the elite response only means the

response. we declared war against this philosophy in 1995. it would seem that they had won. how will things be different this time? the professional service that it was becoming too expensive in the mid-1990s. it is most certainly too expensive in 2010. cutbacks are going to be unavoidable today. if school choice and charters seemed quixotic. movies like "waiting for superman" blame teachers unions. i think it has become clear to us how much of our politics, our daily politics, spins out of

the progressive national this vision and the democratic the centralist vision of the framers of the constitution. copies of the constitution protrude from pockets. one other thing will be necessary. in the summer of 1994, lamar alexander traveled across the

country spending time with dozens of neighbors live leaders who were addressing our social ills. their approach reflected the everyday common sense and moral and spiritual principles of the american people rather than the elitist doctrines. in his book, "we know what to do," american citizens and not the experts, lamar alexander describes this as to size like a school for low income children in savannah, georgia, a shelter for the homeless in dallas, texas, and a job- training program in los angeles. this notion that we must first look at street level problem solvers for their wisdom rather than credentialed elites meant that lamar alexander was tea party before tea party was cool. if things are going to be different in 2010, our new congressional conservatives

will have to follow the lamar alexander example and turned to the wisdom and experience of our grassroots leaders. it will have to show a steadiness of purpose that build them in 1994 once they had their own hands on the levers of national power. as we seek for ways to roll back government, the problems they saw to address are not going away. alternatives are point to have to be found. we will have to look at decentralized solutions. this is another version of the step-by-step approach that was described. for conservatives, the next successful journey to the white house will begin with one like lamar alexander's.

local wisdom must flourish. >> thank you. bill? >> it is great to be on such a clear and balanced panel. [laughter] i liked the story about the young ladies who thought you might have been named after a highway. you might have been named after an earmark. i am sure it was renamed at minimal cost to the taxpayer. it was the executive discretion.

it is stimulating and the comments have been stimulating. i agree with the repeal. it would be great to ban the incandescent light bulb. it should be the first thing on the republican agenda after the defunding of npr. then we can move step by step to slightly bigger issues. let me speak to the step-by- step question, which lamar alexander late out eloquently. i basically agree. let me offer a qualification.

it seems to me conservatism can do both step by step and a kind of comprehensive reform. the conservative comprehensiveness is different from liberal or progressive comprehensiveness. the best way to put it in an abstract formulation would have to be worked out. the fait accompli is central planning. it means now thinking about the broader arrangement of institutions or incentives. it is to have sensible public policy. it is thinking about constitutional liberty. conservative comprehensiveness is about arranging things to help people pursue happiness and to be entrepreneurial and to experiment and to reflect

the wishes of people and to allow government to flourish and do all of the things that were warned against, majority tyranny. this is in the spirit of the federalist. it is a different kind of comprehensive thinking than to plan everything from washington. there is a rebirth of a kind of serious thinking about institutions, incentives, structures, in the spirit of the federalist, and things people thought a lot about over the last couple of centuries so that people can have a free, spirited, and successful free society. the tea partiers are on to that

when they talk about the constitution. what is the constitution? a catalyst of how the government should work. the restoration of constitutionalism is the right kind of constitutionalism in terms of the agenda as opposed to the liberal progressive welfare state. it ends up being sequestered. if you are in the opposition or trying to stop something from happening, of the nation we have had over the last couple of years -- the situation can go on for a year or two would slow modifications. that is the case with the tax code or health care and many

such issues. senate opposition is the current situation for the next few years. the republicans control one branch of government and has some influence on the other half. we will be struggling with the president. there is no need and no purpose for conservatives to spend a huge amount of effort trying to implement comprehensive conservative reforms. it is important to articulate it. practically speaking, extending the current rate of taxes for the next two years is better. practically speaking, appealing bad regulations like chris mentioned is a reasonable and practical thing to do for the economy and the country as opposed to reform our regulatory framework and doing away with the fcc. chipping away at some current entitlements is a good thing to do for the next two years as

opposed to reform of the entitlement structure. not printing more money would be a good thing to push the fed to do. personally, two or three years from now, there needs to be a rethinking of fundamental monetary policy. i am no expert on that. the current system is fundamentally flawed. there needs to be a step-by-step rethinking of policies and structure. taxes are the most obvious idea. i am not saying anything fancy or speculative. conservatives are going to spend the next few weeks insisting on the current tax rate. they may spend the next session of congress doing some minor things.

in 2012, the republican presidential candidate will run on comprehensive conservative tax reform. that does not violate conservatism to have a tax reform. there is going to be a tax code. you have to think comprehensively, if that is the right word, about what it encourages, what judgments it embodies, how it compares to the tax code of other nations, what the relation of federal and state is -- all of these big questions that come at the regime level and the policy level as opposed to the terrorist situation level. we should never minimize the importance of step-by-step. most policy should be step-by- step. most things are not crises.

the old advice of aristotle that one should be aware of the changes because they have consequences -- it is disrupted to a stable and reasonable political order. you do not want to be doing putrid forms every few years in a large part of american life. we hit watershed moments. we are hitting them in a lot of areas where it is debt and deficit or the regulatory system or areas of financial structures. one does need to have a bigger framework for the reforms. when you think of reform as reforming the rules of the road and institutional and structural form with structural reform, those are the kind of reforms conservatives should support.

they create stable structures that people are friendly to you. they exercise their personal liberty. the fact is, after 9/11, we did lots of step-by-step things. we did mostly step-by-step things quite reasonably because you cannot do everything at once. we erred on the side of not doing enough. the problem with the real war on terror is that we have done too much big thinking. it is understandable given the incredible pressure we have been under and the need to deal with threats. we have done things without stepping back and thinking about the whole structure of the u.s. government. are the intelligence agencies properly arranged?

does the culmination of intelligence working? in foreign policy and domestic policy, when you combine step- by-step, sensible reforms, one cannot do more or one does not need to do more or one is under such pressure that one does not have the strength to do more. when you combine that with longer-term constitutional comprehensive reforms, that is a manageable task. that is what conservatives need to do over the next few years. the tea party activists understand this. they want obamacare repealed. the understand that over the medium-term, we need to have

more fundamental reforms in the modern state. we are careening out of a class. these problems and disabilities and efficiencies of the welfare state have come to a head over the last few years. fundamental reform is needed. conservative can do step-by- step reform and comprehensive reform. >> this president assigned the improving american schools act. let's acknowledge that the measure, radical as is seen at the time, was a logical outgrowth of a bipartisan effort from 1983.

in 1989, an education summit was held and president bush agreed on education goals. it was intended to give some traction to the national goals. it seems to make sense at the time. or so i thought. i also noticed at the time and i wrote in the book that these developments further it what we call to the cult of governmentalism. the responsibility for it had been invested in the states. it may seem like ancient history today, but it was not all that long ago. governors such as lamar alexander, bill clinton, and

john engler were sending big reforms crashing onto the beaches of their own states. from the right, mostly from republicans, came a clamor to stop the world, we want to get off. the main symbol was for bush to abolish the department of education. it wanted to abolish washington's involvement in education and return the responsibility to the states. without other sweeping changes, abolishing the education department would recreate the old department of h.e.w. it would not restore state control of education.

the more consequential development was resisted by republicans and led by democrats. it was the move to tighten the screws of the new legislation and create greater authority in washington. it was evident that many states were not doing a great job of setting academic standards. the government was not requiring them to do those kinds of things. when many states lag on these fronts, the fordham institute was reporting on the standards being used for these schools. eyes turned toward washington. this effort became a bipartisan. george w. bush, ted kennedy, and other leaders team up to give us no child left behind.

they believed enough leverage from the government would allow this to happen. nine years later, one of the big challenges awaiting lamar alexander and his colleagues is a try to said that is right. no child left behind has made the performance of every school more transparent, flagging the achievement gaps, listing the treatment toward some notion of proficiency, intervening in bad schools, and giving kids alternatives to bad schools. the problem is not much different today. american kids are not learning

enough. in international comparisons, that that will be out on tuesday. we are all behind of the rest of the world. we are flat and other places are getting better. the problem identified in 1983 remains unsolved in 2010. no child left behind will not solve it. neither will tightening the screws further. we have had 20 years of screwed tightening. taking schools away from those who run them neglects kids. to give credit where it is due, it needs to be said that barack obama has tried to ease this problem given the insurance available, meaning federal funding and regulation.

his blueprint for revamping no child left behind is admirable. congress has avoided grappling with no child left behind. the blueprint has gone nowhere. while there is a consensus about no child left behind's failings, there is no agreement about how to fix it. one problem. this comes to the point of companies of this. no child left behind contains 1000 pages has nothing to do with education reform. they would need to be agreed on before a comprehensive three authorization can be moved lower. another movement is evident

between those who would tighten the regulatory screws -- i could name names -- and those who want the government to butt out. uncle sam butting out is a bad idea. there is a step-by-step approach. it involves something that lamar alexander talked about earlier. there are major problems that we face. this can be done in the title one program, where most of the

money is and most of the no child left behind problem arises. abandon federal oversight of accountability for the majority of american schools. kill yearly progress reports. there is a worthy, organic process under way in this country now embraced on paper by 45 states that share common standards to develop common assessment without federal involvement. as never been done before in this country. has great promise in the direction of transparency. congress can reasonably expect the states to make the performance of their schools transparent.

in the national assessment is a benchmark of that. choose incentives over mandates. create a competitive grant program that rewards states that want to push. put as many dollars as possible in flexible funding streams. experiment with state performance contracts. states can negotiate waivers with the secretary of education. it repudiates the call for governmentalism.

it might do something for our international competitiveness. thank you. [applause] >> let me kick off this discussion beginning with senator alexander's remarks. if you include an extremely promising agenda, making it easier and cheaper to create jobs, when you raise the question comparing this moment based on the election you saw last month, with what happened 15 years ago, you remind us that we are looking for an intellectual context for this latest anti-washington surge. unlike 1994, the tea party

activists are extremely serious about returning washington to its proper constitutional limits. i think that is extremely promising. what better intellectual context for what we would like to see happen? it is a battle cry, a rallying cry --it is an organizing and we are the principal. i agree with chris. i proposed beginning a list, another revolution betrayed if the ban on incandescent light bulbs is not repealed. as you well know, in modifying student loan programs, a generous loans were given this is extended to graduates who go into public service. we should give generous loan

forgiveness for graduate students who do not go into public service. that is how dramatically we need to reorient how we feel about things. what is with the glorification of the public sector? that would be one of my tasks. i have a task for politicians. the nutrition bill passed the house. $4.50 billion per year. this is washington, d.c. dictating what vending machines in grammar schools can contain. they think they ought to be dictating a what vending machines carry. the premise that politicians care more about the well-being of children than state and local officials is stunning. my advice would be if you are preoccupied with what a fourth grader is having for lunch, do

not run for federal office. it is a worthy concern. but stay home and preoccupy itself with what is being served in large rooms at home. when we talk about cutting back spending and discretionary cash, is the argument going to be that these are extremely worthy programs and legitimate for washington to be running, but we do not have the money to pay for them? or are we going to gradually and incrementally articulate the new proposition? we are not spending money on this because it is not washington's concern. >> next, q&a with john burns. then prime minister david cameron at the british house of commons. then we will show you a discussion on the republican agenda in the next session of congress.

>> i am education program specialist here at c-span. each year we conduct a video documentary competition which ask this in grades 6 through 12 to think critically about issues affecting our nation. this year's theme is washington, d.c through my lands. we chose this topic because we would like to explain how the federal government has affected an issue or event in july for community. select a topic that issues you. the goal is to fully develop and research your topic, provide differ points of view, and include -- include c-span footage in your documentary. for more information, you can visit our website. . . .